Chris Burden’s Metropolis II En Route to LACMA

Chris Burden’s Metropolis II, is a kinetic frenzy
of 1200 Hot Wheels toy cars, gigantic roller coaster roadways, toy tracks, wood block, tiles, Legos, Lincoln Logs and a whole lot of noise. Metropolis II is expected to be unveiled at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2011. A clip documenting the work-in-progress was filmed in Burden’s studio in Topanga Canyon, California. 





Bigger, better, faster, stronger —Metropolis II is an evolution of a Burden’s earlier work, Metropolis I. A visual and auditory construction of 80 toy cars, two single lane highways and monorails on tracks, Metropolis I is at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. 

LACMA also features another of Burden's monumental compositions, Urban Light, a dramatic sculptural arrangement of salvaged 1920s- and 1930s-era cast iron lampposts from the Los Angeles area.

The Formosa Pocket Park: Good Thing, Small Package

Peaceful, sustainable and verdant. 
The Formosa Park, located north of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, a green space designed for neighborhood use.

Enter through frosted glass.
It’s 4600 square feet, with drought-tolerant plants, water-conserving irrigation, rocks, sand and a water feature. Compared to most parks, it’s a postage stamp.
The forest floor is translated into a metal shade above, with cutouts that filter light and flirt with sky.
A sculpture reminiscent of a desiccated tree occupies an unexpected corner.
Seats mimic the scattered shapes of fallen leaves, punctuating the winding walkways.

The park was designed by Katherine Spitz Associates.

It adjoins the Formosa 1140, an 11-unit condominium building of blood-orange corrugated metal, wood and glass, developed by Richard Loring of the Habitat Group and designed by Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects. The condo building’s vibrant palette and towering geometry make it hard to miss in a neighborhood of vintage brick and stucco, giving the adjacent residences the effect of unwilling matrons clustered at an impromptu block party or a wake; the pocket park, somehow, softens the effect.

Formosa Park opened in August, 2009. It closes at night.

Project Angel Food’s DO GOODING good Cookies

It’s not often that the opportunity to do help others comes in delicious flavors, but such are the perks of Project Angel Food’s Ginger Snap, Iced Lemon and Chocolate Chip DO GOODING good COOKIES. 
The cookies are the first product line from Project Angel Food Bakeries, an enterprise developed in Project Angel Food’s Vine Street kitchen, which cooks and delivers more than 13,000 meals a week to men, women and children affected by HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. The DO GOODING good COOKIES have been launched in a special partnership with Hollywood and West Hollywood Pavilions Stores; they retail for $3.99, and 100% of the price will go to directly to support the work of Project Angel Food. 
The packaging makes the cookies pretty enough to give as gifts—the delightful pink, yellow and orange cylinders were designed by Richard Manville and directed by board member and volunteer Jacqui Farina. And the cookies were created to be equally beautiful within, using real butter and cane or beet sugar, and eschewing corn syrup, preservatives and hydrogenated or partly hydrogenated fats. Which, in my book, practically qualifies the DO GOODING good COOKIES as health food.
Final note—Project Angel Food has been operating for 21 years, and to date, they’ve prepared and delivered more than seven million meals free of charge. 
You can find the DO GOODING good COOKIES at these Pavilions locations:
727 N. Vine St. Los Angeles, CA 90038
8969 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Yum.

Z Best

Zinke’s Repairs, Glendale, CA.

Eggleston’s Democratic Eye

“I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more or less important.” 
— William Eggleston

Quotidian. Democratic. Spontaneous. Mundane. Trenchant. Subdued. Poetic. Prosaic. Intimate. Vernacular. Gothic. Any Google search reveals an array of terms that apply with equal precision to the quality and content of photographer William Eggleston’s work, whose exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of art opens today. 
William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 was curated by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in association with Haus der Kunst, Munich, and it encompasses an array of 1960s black and white photos and video work, 1970s dye-transfer images and more recent ink-jet prints. 
His images have inspired both derision and praise. When his exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1976 — the first one-man color photography show presented by the institution — the New York Times denounced it as “the most hated show of the year”.

Yet his work now invites comparisons to William Faulkner, and his sensibility is imprinted into films by Gus Van Sant, Dennis Hopper, David Byrne, David Lynch and Sophia Coppola. Consider The Virgin Suicides, Coppola’s 1999 film starring a splendor-in-the-grass Kirstin Dunst; compare it with Eggleston’s mid-1970s Memphis girl, a posy-print grass angel with a Brownie box camera held askew.

And if being photographed by Juergan Teller for a Marc Jacobs campaign is the equivalent of sealing one’s fate as an icon, Eggleston and his anthology of detritus and minutiae have transcended the cultural stratosphere. Look back to Jacob’s 2007 Spring-Summer campaign, which featured Eggleston, Charlotte Rampling, pinstripes, a rumpled bed, a seedy Paris hotel and a flat-light embrace of the domestic grotesque.

Visit the exhibition at LACMA: William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008, October 31, 2010 through January 16, 2011.

Get the book: William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008,  (Whitney Museum of American Art) by Ms. Elisabeth Sussman, Thomas. 
Watch: The Virgin Suicides.
Read: A Very Singular Vision, SF Said, telegraph.co.uk.

Untitled, Memphis, Tennessee, c. 1974-75.

Kirstin Dunst as Lux Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides, 1999.
William Eggleston and Charlotte Rampling, Juergan Teller for Marc Jacobs, 1997.

In Living Color

Most mornings last week, 7:15 am.

Yippie-Y-Yay

Seven-Year Itch

Jean Paul Gaultier presented his final collection for Hermès, ending a seven-year collaboration with a mix of streamlined separates in leather and suede for Spring 2011, a look reminiscent of Zorro and High Plains Drifter, with a dash of Lola Montès.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Film Foundation

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting an array of feature-length films that are nearly operatic in scope, from last weekend’s noir classics, The Big Combo and They Made Me a Fugitive, to upcoming color-saturated melodramas and suspense thrillers.

Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen, Beggars of Life, 1928

LACMA’s Film Department is marking the 20th Anniversary of the Film Foundation, a non-profit founded by Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers in 1990. The Film Foundation has partnered with major film archives in the US and abroad, and has provided funding to preserve and restore nearly 545 films — a variety of productions that includes silents, documentaries and shorts, along with the kind of features that make it worth enduring a night in a Bing Auditorium seat.

October 15,  7:30 pm, Bonjour Tristesse, 1958

October 15,  9:15 pm, The Barefoot Contessa, 1954

October 16, 5:00 pm, Leave Her to Heaven, 1945

October 16 , 7:30 pm, Senso, 1954

October 23, 7:30 pm, Beggars of Life, 1928

October 29, 7:30 pm, Shadow of a Doubt, 1943

October 29, 9:30 pm, Cloak and Dagger, 1946

The X Factor

There’s a dearth of the letter X in Los Angeles signage.

Some restaurants have seemingly effortless, yet somewhat obligatory scripted lettering, such as Xi’an, Beverly Hills; Xai Verandah Lounge, West Hollywood; and Xiomara, Hollywood. 
Then there are the X, XX and XXX theatres, but for all their lurid glory, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seem all. 

Despite the banality with which the letter X has been subjected to since the death of the last King Louis, the letter X has a rich history as a powerful symbol. 
An abbreviation for Christ. 
The sign that marks the spot. 
The signature of the illiterate. 

So it’s not surprising that a double-X configuration would continue to give rise to The most INTERESTING MAN in the WORLD and one of the funniest campaigns in the world. 
But somehow, I can’t picture THE most INTERESTING MAN buying beer from a battened-down liquor store on Brand Boulevard in Glendale.

Cheers.

Faux Moto

“You see, I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle, actually.” — Henry Winkler

As fall closes in, the re-envisioned motorcycle jacket trend is gaining momentum, and last year’s category of asymmetrical-zip fleece and wool knits has been expanded to include more pleather, along with lace, tweed, ponte knit, performance jersey and cotton-blends. From MyShape:

There’s something for both the Erich Von Zipper and the 1985 Madonna fan.

Lady-like variations reminiscent of Grace Kelly or January Jones.

Monochromatic motocross — modeled after WWI infantry, best accompanied by goggles and a side car.

Along with soft, athletic versions, perfect for a trip to the gym or a day at the library.

Kut from the Kloth, 217686; Giacca, 217262; L.A. Kitty, 217466

Calvin Klein Jeans, 215598; Mac and Jac, 215429; Mac & Jac 215427

G.E.T. 217566; Giacca, 217761; Anthracite, 219049

Karen Kane, 215532; Calvin Klein Performance, 217486; Calvin Klein Jeans, 215593

Woof!

Just yesterday, I was involved in a conversation about how the 1980s ruined Copperplate. 
(It almost works for Woof. Or do I simply want to like it because of the name ?)

Like Mother, Like Daughter

The newly released Style Book: Fashionable Inspirations features 145 years of photos from the Getty Images archive. For a preview, visit the guardian.co.uk.

a woman and her poodle, circa 1945, Getty Images

Hat Hair: A Risk Worth Taking

True-Faux

Fall and faux fur are the sartorial equivalent of peanut butter and chocolate, a manufactured combination that seldom fails to delight. Even bad fake fur can elicit a smile, if only because it’s so awful, and well-done fake fur offers a sense of plush-luxe that can be as emotionally satisfying as a 
fresh pack of Reese’s that you don’t have to share with anyone. Here are nine options to consider from MyShape.com:

Sisters, 216000; Sisters 216002; Sisters 216006.MICHAEL Michael Kors, 216592 (sorry -- sold out!); Sisters, 21600; BB Dakota, 216885.BB Dakota, 217431; Sisters, 216001; Beth Bowley, 215503.

More or Less Than Meets the Eye

 
A John Baldessari retrospective that showcases more than 40 years of work, Pure Beauty, ends today at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 
The show is a cohesive exploration of the multi-level interplay between images, graphics, type, and words, contextualized over the course of a lifetime. Or, rather, half of the 79-year-old artist’s lifetime. 
In 1970, Baldessari cremated the paintings he’d created between 1953 and 1966 (save one, Nose, which was included in the show). The Wall Street Journal’s Lance Esplund implies that this was possibly Baldessari’s finest artistic act: “Cremation was the right — if not the ethical—choice. He should have stopped there.” 
Los Angeles Times’ critic Christopher Knight offers a more enthusiastic review of Baldessari’s influence: “His best work stops us short, allowing us to see things with fresh eyes.”
Baldessari’s work is a tour de force of the seen, the unseen and the ill-advised, with images that highlight the chasm between painting and photography; with faces concealed by bright circles and silhouettes alluded to with mylar-esque masques; and with playful contradictions that explore what an artist should or should not do, whether it be to juxtapose a kiss and a palm tree or to make it appear that a palm tree is growing right out of a figure’s head.
Esplund might have you believe that Baldessari is an artist who rejected art, and he questions Baladessari’s need to make more. Knight, by comparison, seems to take Baldessari’s statesmanship for granted, a Conceptual artist with a capital “C”, and a successful navigator of the gap between the historic and the contemporary. 


Much Less Than Meets the Eye, Lance Esplund, the Wall Street Journal
Art review: ‘John Baldessari: Pure Beauty’ @ LACMA, Christopher Knight, the Los Angeles Times, Culture Monster blog
John Baldessari — “Wrong” (1967), Paul Sears Photography Blog
LACMA Exhibitions: John Baldessari

Kissing Series: Simone Palm Trees, 1975.
Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966-1968.

You’re A Murderer, Ya Are, Blanche

Bloggers Tom & Lorenzo are featuring a Vogue Italia fashion editorial based on Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? The image at the left features selections from Chanel fall 2010. For Spring 2011, I hope to see tidy shirtwaists and roller skates inspired by my other favorite movie, The Bad Seed.